Europe Correspondent

London: Rolf Harris had a history of molesting young women and girls who were in awe of him, a series of witnesses are expected to tell a London court this week.

Prosecutor Sasha Wass QC intends to use the witnesses to boost each others’ credibility, by testifying to the Australian entertainer’s bad character, she said in her opening statement.

Ms Wass said each witness’ story bore similarities – a “pattern of behaviour” in which he “took advantage of his celebrity status in order to molest young girls”.

The second and final week of prosecution witnesses will also hear from the last of four complainants, an Australian woman who claims Harris assaulted her in a London pub when she was a 15-year-old on a youth theatre tour.

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Harris, 84, has pleaded not guilty to 12 charges of indecent assault against four complainants. Three of those complainants took the witness stand at Southwark Crown Court last week.

They cannot be named for legal reasons, and gave evidence from behind a curtain.

The court is expected to hear from a witness who in 1969 was an 11 or 12-year-old staying in a house in Australia that Harris visited. He allegedly said to her “come here, I want to be the first one to give you a tongue kiss”, then shocked and terrified her when he put his tongue in her mouth.

The girl found it “vile”, Ms Wass said.

Ms Wass also said she would call another witness who was around 16 or 17 when Harris visited New Zealand and groped her bottom when they were dancing.

“He was targeting people who were in awe of him, he pushed the boundaries even in a public place . . . and he knew he could get away with it,” Ms Wass said in her opening note.

The alleged assaults against the two witnesses were not within British jurisdiction at the time, Ms Wass said, so were not the subject of criminal charges.

The court is also expected to hear from a woman who met Harris on holiday in Malta when she was 18, who claims he kissed and fondled her in the back room of a bar that he had taken her to on the pretext of showing her some paintings.

Also early in the week the final complainant will take the stand – an Australian woman who said Harris sexually assaulted her when she was 15 in April 1986, in a London pub at a dinner for a youth theatre group.

The woman said Harris had invited her to sit on his lap, and then started rubbing against her and touching her intimately with one hand.

When she got up to go to the loo, she emerged to find him waiting for her, giving her a hug before assaulting her.

The attack triggered a change in her personality, Ms Wass said, leading to bulimia, depression and heavy drinking once she returned to Australia.

In the first week of prosecution witnesses, three women testified that Harris had assaulted them.

One said he had groped her during an autograph session in the late 1960s, when she was only 8 or 9 years old.

Another said he had grabbed her bottom in a way that felt “wrong”, when she was around 14 in the mid-1970s.

And the main complainant, who gave evidence over two days, was a childhood friend of his daughter and said Harris had first assaulted her when she was 13, while on holiday in Hawaii and Australia. She said the assaults continued through her teenage years and into her 20s.

The defence argued that it was a consensual affair that began after she was 18.

On the other witnesses, defence barrister Sonia Woodley QC said they had never happened, and the witnesses were mistaken.